Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a microscope illumination apparatus, and in particular to a technology for dark-field illumination of a microscope.
Description of the Related Art
A microscope illumination apparatus is known that includes both a bright-field illumination optical system that condenses light emitted from a light source in an exit pupil position of an objective and a dark-field illumination optical system that irradiates a sample with illumination light from a ring-shaped light source from an oblique direction so as to obtain scattered light or diffracted light. Further, a microscope apparatus in which a dark-field illumination unit including a light source and a lens, the dark-field illumination unit being a portion of a dark-field illumination optical system, is removable from a microscope body is proposed in Patent Document 1 (Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 2005-227442).
By configuring a dark-field illumination unit so as to be a removable unit, as disclosed in Patent Document 1, a microscope apparatus can be utilized with the dark-field illumination unit equipped as needed so as to switch an illumination mode to dark-field illumination.